Attributed to Daily Mail Reporter, the article went to explain what a few people had written on various websites. It doesn't exactly justify 'up in arms'.It's unusual for the Mail to report comments on messageboards that aren't about the BBC. So where did the story come from?
Well, around 20 hours before, The Scotsman published an article by Tim Cornwell which carried the headline:
Cornwell's article had quotes from angry fans, Scottish film-maker Murray Grigor and Hannah McGill, former director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
The Daily Mail Reporter article includes all the same quotes, in exactly the same order.
There are other similarities. From the Scotsman:
The comic's Belgian creator, Georges Prosper Remi, known as Hergé, named Haddock while at dinner with his wife. "What is that?" he asked, when seeing haddock on the menu. "A sad English fish," she replied.
And the Mail:
The comic’s Belgian creator, Georges Prosper Remi, known as Herge, named Haddock while at dinner with his wife.
‘What is that?’ he asked, when seeing haddock on the menu.
‘A sad English fish,’ she replied.
From Cornwell:
The trailer features the moment when the drunken Captain Haddock starts a fire in a rowboat. "What are you doing?" Tintin asks. "I lit a wee fire," he replies. "In a boat?" Tintin screams.
One viewer referred caustically to Serkis's Scottish accent as "somewhere between Christopher Lambert's in Highlander and Robin Williams's in Mrs Doubtfire" - Scottish accents voiced by a Frenchman and an American comedian.
And from Daily Mail Reporter:
The trailer features the moment when the drunken Captain Haddock starts a fire in a rowboat. Tintin asks: ‘What are you doing?’, to which Haddock replies: ‘I lit a wee fire’. ‘In a boat?’ Tintin screams.
One viewer referred to Serkis’ Scottish accent as ‘somewhere between Christopher Lambert’s in Highlander and Robin Williams’s in Mrs Doubtfire’ - Scottish accents voiced by a Frenchman and an American comedian.
But there are other bits of background information about Tintin and Haddock in the Daily Mail Reporter's article that aren't in Cornwell's story. For example:
There was a real 20th-century ship’s master bearing the surname - Captain Herbert Haddock was skipper of the famous White Star Line’s passenger vessel Olympic, and had also been temporarily at the helm of its sister ship, Titanic, before it was officially handed over to White Star for her doomed 1912 maiden voyage with passengers.
Compare that paragraph with this one from the Captain Haddock Wikipedia page, which was last updated two days before the Mail article appeared:
There was, however a real 20th-century ship's master bearing this unlikely but appropriate surname: Captain (Herbert) Haddock had been the skipper of the famous White Star Line's passenger vessel Olympic. He had also been temporarily at the helm of Olympic's even more famous sister ship, Titanic, before Titanic was officially handed over to White Star for her doomed 1912 maiden voyage with passengers.
There's more. Daily Mail Reporter:
Captain Haddock was introduced to the Tintin books in The Crab with the Golden Claws.
Haddock was first introduced as the rum-loving captain of the Karaboudjan, a merchant vessel used, without Haddock’s knowledge, by his first mate Allan Thompson for smuggling drugs inside crab tins.
Wikipedia:
Captain Haddock was introduced in The Crab with the Golden Claws....
Haddock was first introduced as the rum-loving captain of the Karaboudjan, a merchant vessel used—without Haddock's knowledge—by his first mate Allan Thompson for smuggling drugs inside crab tins.
Daily Mail Reporter:
But his most noble act is in Tintin in Tibet, in which he stoically volunteers to sacrifice his life to save Tintin.
Although when introduced Haddock has command of a freighter, in later volumes he is clearly retired.
The Captain’s coarse humanity and sarcasm act as a counterpoint to Tintin’s often implausible heroism; he is always quick with a dry comment whenever the boy reporter gets too idealistic.
Wikipedia:
his most noble act being in the pivotal Tintin in Tibet, in which he stoically volunteers to sacrifice his life to save Tintin. Although when introduced Haddock has command of a freighter, in later volumes he is clearly retired.
The Captain's coarse humanity and sarcasm act as a counterpoint to Tintin's often implausible heroism; he is always quick with a dry comment whenever the boy reporter gets too idealistic.
Daily Mail Reporter:
By the time of their last completed and published adventure, Tintin and the Picaros, Haddock had become such an important figure that he dominates much of the first half of the story.
He is especially notable in The Red Sea Sharks, where his skilful captaining of the ship he and Tintin seize from Rastapopoulos allows them to survive until they are rescued.
Wikipedia:
By the time of their last completed and published adventure, Tintin and the Picaros, Haddock had become such an important figure that he dominates much of the first half of the story. He is especially notable in The Red Sea Sharks, where his skilful captaining of the ship he and Tintin seize from Rastapopoulos allows them to survive until they are rescued.
Daily Mail Reporter:
In addition to his many insults, the most famous of Haddock’s expressions include permutations of two phrases: ‘Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!’ and ‘Ten thousand thundering typhoons!’
Wikipedia:
In addition to his many insults, the most famous of Haddock's expressions relate to any of a number of permutations of two phrases: "Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!" ("Mille millions de mille milliards de mille sabords!") and "Ten thousand thundering typhoons!" ("Tonnerre de Brest!").
Given this shameless copy-and-paste job, is it any wonder the person responsible decided to hide behind the 'Daily Mail Reporter' byline?
(Hat-tip to Steffan)
Posts
Tonnerre de Brest!
ReplyDelete"Upgrade to the Daily Mail" or just read Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteBlistering barnicles.
ReplyDeleteThe whole article is drivel anyway. A lot of other publications have started using the Mail's description of Haddock as "quintessentially Cornish". But Herge, the author, never mentioned Haddock's country of origin. If Tintin, a Belgian, can be voiced by Jamie Bell in an English accent, then why is there an outcry over a character, who could be from anywhere, having a Scottish accent?
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that the Daily Mail bought the article from The Scotsman, though there's no evidence of this. However, all material in Wikipedia is covered by the creative commons attribution share alike licence which The Daily Mail are in violation of by 1) not attributing Wikipedia as the source, 2) not releasing their article under the share alike attribution licence, and 3) not linking back to the relevant creative commons licence.
ReplyDeleteWhat has me up in arms is that Hollywood doesn't have any new ideas anymore and is content to keep re-hashing all this old shit.
ReplyDeleteI should have sent you a piece of a few months ago. They ripped off a long feature on the Kazakh/Russian model Ruslana Korshunova from Newsweek. Badly. It included the following:
ReplyDelete'"And sociologist Emilie Durkheim added that young women from former Soviet republics are especially vulnerable because parents have no traditions or value systems to pass onto their children."'
Emilie? Er... did they mean the French father of sociology, Emile Durkheim? Who died in 1917?
I posted a comment, and they appear to have added the world's crappest correction:
"And in his living years, sociologist Emile Durkheim opined that young women from former Soviet republics are especially vulnerable because, he claimed, parents have no traditions or value systems to pass onto their children."
He wrote about suicide in nineteenth century France...
Aside the first bit of this article, it just goes on about the character, and nothing about his accent. What am I missing?
ReplyDelete